The aging part of the population grows quickly in industrialized countries. An aging person often lives in a place, where relatives or friends do not have time to visit sufficiently often in order to assess the health and ability of the person. In such a case the worry of the relatives and friends for how the person they are close to manages in their daily routines can become great.
In order to eliminate such a situation, various computerized solutions have been developed, by using which the daily activities of a person or several persons can be monitored on a rough level. The apartment, which a person uses, can for example be equipped with various door or room sensors, which indicate the use of the door or the movement of the person inside the room.
Thus the person's movement can be discovered over a certain time period. If no signals regarding the person's movement are received from the sensors either during a certain time or at certain time intervals, the arrangement provides an alarm, which is relayed through the data network. Examples of such monitoring systems are shown in the patents JP 2007299121 and CN 101324662.
Solutions are also known, wherein the person has a device for example on his or her wrist, which device can monitor vital functions or which can be used to send an alarm to an external person in situations, where the person feels that his or her ability has weakened. The alarm can be sent for example via radio, telephone or the internet.
Even though the description of this application concentrates mainly on monitoring the path of a pet staying in the home, the same problems and solutions can also be applied for monitoring the movements and activities of a human living at home.
Buying and caring for various pets continuously becomes more common. Caring for pets is an element, which counterbalances the rush for a busy human. The care of the pet however always takes up time from its owner. It is not in all situations possible, however, for the owner to be always with his pet or to control its behaviour.
If the owner needs to be away from the house every day for long periods of time, the life of the pet can become so boring that the pet develops various forms of destructive behaviour. Thus a place can for example be booked for the pet at a pet care facility or an external person can be employed to care for the pet daily during at least a part of the day.
Various pet monitoring and controlling means functioning via data networks are also known. Especially the emergence and development of the internet as a central communication channel has made the development of various pet monitoring and controlling systems easier. With such monitoring and controlling means the behaviour of a pet can be monitored in real-time either via video image or an audio dispatch also when outside the home. From the video images and/or the sounds of the pet one can deduce in what kind of activity state the pet is at that exact moment.
The movement and recreation of the pet can also be monitored in real-time via a data network. The positioning of the pet in the home can be realized for example with video surveillance, RFID identifier readers, GPS, infrared sensors, acoustic positioning methods, radio positioning or calculation of the position based on acceleration measurement.
The controlling of the operation of various food and drink dispensers used by the pets can also be managed via a data network. Such a food dispenser is known for example from application publication US 2007/0295277.
Training and/or play direction for a pet, which occurs through a data network, is also known. One such remote training system is presented in application publication WO 2008/140992.
It is also possible to realize physical handling or petting of a pet through a data network. Application publication US 2009/0090305 shows an arrangement, by means of which a petting device in the possession of the owner can provide a real sensation on the skin of the pet.
If the pet owner's life becomes so busy that he does not have time to monitor the activity of the pet via a data network in real-time, then it is possible to assign at least some part of the controlling of the daily activities of the pet to a suitably programmed home computer. In such a system a computer in the home simulates the owner during at least a part of the day. One such arrangement is depicted in application publication US 2006/0011144. The depicted arrangement comprises real-time positioning of a pet (dog) with various methods, control of the food and drink dispensers, monitoring of the activity state of the dog with an acceleration sensor (in its place or moving), monitoring of the body temperature of the dog, monitoring the barking of the dog, creating various scent, sound and picture animations depicting the owner and showing them to the dog. If an activity model, which differs from the normal, can be observed in the activity of the dog at a certain time, the computer sends an alarm regarding the matter to the pet owner. The solution shown in the reference publication can thus give an alarm, if the activity of the dog momentarily differs sufficiently from the activity models stored in the memory of the computer.
The arrangement shown in reference publication US 2006/0011144 cannot make conclusions in situations, where the activity of a dog surprisingly changes, even if the activity stays within normal limits, but the movement of the dog still changes either temporarily or little by little to differ completely from the normal movement. For example the dog moves as much as before, but the movement area has changed from the usual. In such cases a conclusion made by the pet owner, regarding what has caused the situation, would also be needed.
The same conclusion problem also applies to the movement of a human, for example an elderly human, living alone at home, which movement may reveal a change occurring in his or her state of health.